


The Nameless Day

by anonymous_moose



Series: Sizzle It Up! with Taako and Co. [5]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Father's Day, Fluff, Gen, Make no mistake, Taako is a Bad Dad, but he is a dad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-02
Updated: 2017-07-02
Packaged: 2018-11-16 00:15:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11242278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anonymous_moose/pseuds/anonymous_moose
Summary: It's a very special day, and Angus is fully prepared for it. Taako, however, isn't. Not in the least.Angus makes something special. Taako learns you don't have to accept something for it be true.





	The Nameless Day

**Author's Note:**

> This was meant to be a five-hundred word piece I posted for funsies on the day, but it got too large and I had to treat it like a real thing! Now it's weeks afterward and I've finally finished editing it and I'm tired of looking at it and now here it is! A self-indulgent mess that's basically the same thing as everything else I've written! Enjoy??

Taako was elbow-deep in the wagon's sink, washing the dishes from the show. Kravitz was finishing packing up the leftover merch into the second wagon — not a lot sold today, but enough. The aprons went faster than the rest; they'd have to restock soon, if the t-shirts didn't pick up—

"Happy Father's Day, sir!"

Taako startled and spun, splashing Angus in the face in the process. He stood there, stock still as soapy water dripped from his face, a small package in his hands.

"What the what?" Taako asked loudly.

Angus took his glasses off and wiped them on his shirt. Which was also wet, so it didn't really help much.

"It's Father's Day, sir," Angus explained. "I — I got you something."

Rather than engage with that idea, Taako looked around for a towel and avoided eye contact.

"How do you know?" he asked, walking over to an open cabinet and rummaging around inside. "Who says? There's all kinds of days. Maybe you missed it."

"No, it's definitely today, sir!" Angus chirped. "I bought a calendar to make sure I didn't miss it!"

Taako hid his face and scowled. He made a mental note to limit the boy's on-hand spending money in the future.

"Listen, kiddo," he sighed, pulling out a sea-green bath towel and drying his hands as he tried, desperately, to find something to say to the kid that he wouldn't regret later. "I'm not — I don't want anything, okay? It's — just give it to Krav, he'll love whatever it is."

"Oh, I already gave Mr. Kravitz his Father's Day present, sir," Angus explained. "This is just for you!"

"Angus—"

The boy thrust his hands towards Taako. The small package, wrapped carefully in colored wax paper and bound with a delicate ribbon, was also soaking wet.

Taako rolled his eyes and looked everywhere but at Angus' face. The confines of the wagon were tight enough that he couldn't walk past him, and after the show, he was all spelled out, which meant no Blinking away either. So, very reluctantly, Taako reached out and snatched up the little wrapped box from the boy's hand, trading him the towel.

"Fine, I took it. Are we done?"

Angus lowered the towel from his face. His eyebrows rose expectantly. "Aren't you gonna open it?"

"What, now?"

"I mean..." Angus scuffed his foot and tugged at the bottom of his fancy little jacket. "Yeah?"

Taako narrowed his eyes at the boy, and Angus smiled nervously. His bone-deep desire to flee from this situation notwithstanding, Taako felt a sudden surge of pride; the little shit was manipulating him.

And it was working.

With a melodramatic, long-suffering sigh, he allowed the boy (his apprentice, his ward, certainly nothing more than that) this victory. Nothing more than positive reinforcement, he figured. That was how you trained children and dogs and people named Magnus.

Taako untied the ribbon with a single tug — of course Angus would wrap a present like he was being graded on it — and began to tear off the paper. Beneath it was a plain white cardboard box. He popped off the lid and stuck his hand into the pile of packing tissue.

"I hope you like it, sir," Angus said, wringing his hands. "I worked really hard on it."

When his hand settled on something solid, Taako quirked an eyebrow. He pulled it out and stared at it.

It was a small hourglass. The circular wooden covers on each end were crudely (but carefully) carved. They had notches in the rim, like a cog or a gear, with little numbers carved into the teeth and a large arrow across the center. Each end seemed fused tightly to the glass body. The body itself looked far too professional for even Angus to attempt. Taako tried to remember the last town they passed through with a glass blower, and could only come up with Kiln, months ago; Angus had been working on this thing for the better part of a year.

And it was empty. Not a grain of sand inside it.

Taako turned it in his hands and furrowed his brow. "I don't get it."

"Turn it," Angus said, pantomiming the motion. "Counter-clockwise."

"Which way's that, again?"

"It's th—" Angus stopped and put his hands on his hips, glaring at him. "You know what clockwise means."

Taako couldn't help his smirk. "Don't have to know much with a little know-it-all like you around."

Angus shook his head. Taako turned his attention back to the hourglass and turned the rim counter-clockwise. It made a series of satisfying clicks, and when he lifted his hand, he realized the edge was a separate mechanism from the center — the arrow was now pointing at the first number, "5."

And then sand started filling the top of the glass.

"It's a timer," Angus explained excitedly, clasping his hands. "I got the idea from that time you left the soup on the stove too long. Y'know, when you said it boiled off the flavor?"

Of course Taako remembered; he'd been making it for Magnus' birthday, but the dullard wanted brownies for dessert, and Taako got distracted helping the big oaf not make a complete mess in his own kitchen while the soup over cooked. Magnus hadn't cared one iota, but Taako had still bitched and moaned about this failure for days after the fact, enough that Kravitz eventually told him to either make another pot to cheer himself up or he'd be sleeping alone for the foreseeable future.

Still, Taako was a prideful bastard. "Don't need a timer," he mumbled, holding it up and examining it; sand continued to fill the top chamber as it drained into the bottom. "Good chef never needs one."

"And you're a great chef, sir!" Angus said quickly, shuffling nervously on the spot. "But... everyone needs a little help sometimes, right? Better to... to have it and not need it!"

"How did you make this?" Taako asked, changing the subject.

"The glass I got done by a professional," Angus said. "The rest I did myself, carved and fused it all together. It's a combination of time-limited Conjuration and Transmutation enchantments — air into sand, mostly — and Illusion for the chime at the end. You said I needed work on those, so I thought this would be... a good project..."

Taako checked the lid and found it had turned slightly; the arrow was now pointing between the "5" and the "0."

"Huh. Neat."

Taako looked down at Angus. He'd ducked his head and was wringing his hands again, blinking rapidly.

"But — but you don't need it," he said tightly. "You're a good chef, it's not — it's useless to you—"

Angus blinked hard and turned his head away to hide a tear.

_Oh shit. Oh shit oh shit oh shit._

Taako kneeled to look him in the eye. "Hey, boychik—"

"I'm sorry," Angus said, voice watery, not looking at him, "I really thought I got it right and—"

_Fuck this._

Taako momentarily stuffed all his bullshit into the back of his mind and pulled Angus into a tight hug. He froze up, like he always did when Taako did something overtly affectionate.

"It's great, pumpkin," he said. "It's a great gift, and I love it. Okay?"

Angus swallowed audibly and took a breath. "Do you mean it?"

"When have I ever said anything I didn't mean?"

A few seconds later, they both recited simultaneously:

"That was rhetorical."

Angus laughed a little, sniffling on Taako's shoulder. Taako pat him on the back, unwilling to let go and equally unwilling to think about why.

Then the sound of a massive church bell rang out in his hand, and Taako nearly dropped the hourglass to the floor.

"God damn, my dude," Taako said, pulling out of the hug and looking at the timer. "You weren't messing around with that Illusion spell, huh?"

Angus winced. "Too loud?"

"No!" Taako said quickly. Then he shrugged, gesturing vaguely. "I mean, you want it to be loud. Kitchen's a busy place, all kinds of scrapin' and sizzlin' and whatnot."

"That's... kinda what I thought."

"Good instincts, kid. Solid." He rubbed at the inside of one of his ears. "In the future, though, volume control's a good idea."

Angus nodded, then took his glasses off to clean them again. Taako looked away, one hand still on the boy's shoulder.

"It's... it's real nice, Ango," he said softly. "Really. Most people... they don't make gifts, y'know? It's a lotta work. So this is... yeah."

When he looked at Angus, the boy had put his glasses back on, and they seemed to make his still-watery eyes grow a size larger.

"You did good, Agnes," he said with a crooked smile. "Putting this together? All the enchantments and shit? Proud of you."

Angus' eyes widened, and a big teary grin split his face.

And all the bullshit Taako had shoved in the back of his mind made its way forward again.

"As a teacher," he clarified quickly, patting Angus on the shoulder and looking away. "Y'know, 'cause you're a — you're a good student. Not at all an embarrassment to my brand. And that's what really matters, y'feel me?"

When he looked back, Angus was still smiling at him, but he nodded and said, "Yes, sir. Of course."

Taako felt something well up in his chest. He quashed it and gave Angus one last pat on the head before he stood up.

"You think you'll use it in the show, sir?" Angus asked.

"Oh, yeah," said Taako, turning the hourglass in his hands. "Every day, probably."

* * *

 

Taako never used the hourglass in the show. He never used it in the wagons, or in his home. He was a great chef, fastidious and hyper-aware of cook times and oven rotations, and he rarely made mistakes.

But from that day forward, in every performance _Sizzle It Up!_ ever gave, the hourglass was front and center on Taako's work table. Right above the logo.

And from the day _Sizzle It Up!'_ s tour ended, the hourglass sat on Taako's nightstand in his wagon. It took up enough room that he couldn't put anything else there, so he never did.

And from the day he and Kravitz pulled the wagon in front of their freshly-purchased house, the hourglass sat on a shelf in the foyer, at eye level. It was the first thing anyone saw when they entered, and the last thing they saw when they left.

And for every Father's Day that followed, Taako accepted whatever gift Angus gave him, wordlessly and without complaint. Angus, for his part, never told him what day it was.

Taako knew, though.

He bought a calendar.


End file.
